Ok so much help from the web, searched for the following info build dates for the 70 and 90 ton coal hoppers? thanks a million

It entirely depends on the railroad and the specific cars. Find a reference book for rolling stock for each of the railroads you're interested in researching.

In your research you will also find cars that the weight limit was raised. Many times all that were needed were different trucks with heavier springs and axles/bearings, so it is really road specific. Old photos would probably be the best research.
Check out George Elwoods site, as it is not searched by the search engines. He turned that function off. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/">http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/</a><!-- m -->
Charlie

Thanks guys the hoppers are going to be for a freelanced rr set in fall of 59 if this helps any.

The C&O class H7-11 70 ton coal hoppers were built in 1928. The H7-12 class were built in 1929.......they were rebuilt from the 72000-74999 series originally built by the Standard Steel Car Company in 1916.The last of these cars were retired in 1974. The Hocking Valley 70 ton hoppers series 73000-76999 were built in 1923 and 1924. The last of these retired in 1962.
Just guessing, but I'd feel safe with just about any 70 ton coal hopper for your 1959 era road.
When buying cars, or decals, try to see what the build dates are, you don't want any, "after the date" of your road.

I believe the AAR rule at the time was no cars over 40 years old could be used in interchange. They just upped it to 50.
Charlie

The other thing is that if a car got a complete rebuild, they were good for another 40 years. I think many of the Santa Fe ice bunker reefers were rebuilt. I think that many were originally truss rod cars that were rebuilt with fish belly frames. Later many of the old wood sheethed cars were rebuilt with steel bodies. I don't know if anyone rebuilt hoppers, or if they just bought new.

A lot of the wood composite hoppers were rebuilt after WWII and The P&LE upgraded a lot of the smaller hoppers to 100 ton capacity in the late 80's.
Charlie

As far as I know, the 40 year rule applied to the car's underframe. The car body could be repaired, modified, or replaced completely, but if it continued to re-use the original frame, it had to be taken out of interchange service after 40 years. On the other hand, a car whose frame was rebuilt or replaced was considered to be "new", and consequently received a new BLT. date.
An example of this would be the car shown below:


From the outward appearance of this X-29 boxcar, especially the plate ends, this car was built to the 1924 design. Such cars were built into 1928, when the design was changed to use, among other things, ribbed ends.
I was initially confused by the BLT. date shown on the car, though:


The car displays some attributes of the 1928 design (which was used well into the '30s), such as updated doors and door stops, power handbrake gear, etc., but the ends definitely place the BLT. date somewhere between 1924 and 1928. I was assured that the BLT date shown was authentic, so I built the model to reflect this. However, further investigation revealed (too late, unfortunately, to add the changes to the finished model) that a number of X-29 boxcars in freight service had had their underframes rebuilt in 1934, prior to being placed in express service. That explains both the visible upgrades mentioned and the reason for the 1934 BLT. date on what otherwise appeared to be an older car.

As Charlie has noted, upgraded cars didn't always readily reveal their modifications. Pennsy's H21a quad hoppers, introduced in 1911, were rated at 70 tons. By 1917 they had 30,000 of them in service. In 1922 and 1923, the earlier H21 50 ton hoppers were converted to H21as by replacing the 50 ton trucks with 70 ton trucks, a change probably not all that noticeable to the average fan at trackside. These latter cars, some dating back to 1909, could have remained in interchange service until 1949, although it's doubtful that many did: coal is a corrosive substance, so many cars probably wore out before their frame-life expired.

Wayne

Coal corrosive :jawdrop: i did not know, got to be a low amount tho i suspect. Good info tho guys

Me thinks that only high-sulphur coal would be all that corrosive, though. IMHO

Hey, I'm just repeating what I've read in several places. Personally, I've never been corroded by coal, although I may be getting a little rusty.

Wayne

jeez doc gonna have to send you to the rip trackfor a once over?

doctorwayne Wrote:As far as I know, the 40 year rule applied to the car's underframe. The car body could be repaired, modified, or replaced completely, but if it continued to re-use the original frame, it had to be taken out of interchange service after 40 years. On the other hand, a car whose frame was rebuilt or replaced was considered to be "new", and consequently received a new BLT. date.

Wayne

This is correct. NS and CSX fairly recently went through a massive retirement/replacement program of what appeared to be relatively new Conrail coalporter gondolas. Turns out these gons were not new, but rebodied by Conrail Hollidaysburg Car Shop using 100 ton hoppers, the first of which were manufactured by the PRR in 1964.

Apparently the 40 year rule was superseded by a 50 year rule, and now the AAR (but not the FRA as of yet) has increased that to 65 years.

railroader9731 Wrote:Coal corrosive :jawdrop: i did not know, got to be a low amount tho i suspect. Good info tho guys

Great thread! I knew of the rebuild rules for passenger cars, but not their freight car counterparts!

Early on, metal hopper cars had major rust problems. These problems were greatly reduced with the introduction of corrosion-resistant Cor-Ten steel. This is the same cheap and strong material that was used by everyone except Budd to produce lightweight passenger cars.